A diner with a raw bar

Diners are the ultimate nostalgic American eateries, which makes it all the more ironic that most people don't remember actually being at one. For one you shouldn't pass over until you're about to pass out: Bowery Diner

After months of build-up, the newest spot from Motorino's Mathieu Palombino is unsurprisingly opening on Bowery, and's dressed up to look like a standard diner: cafeteria-esque tables & booths, a gently glowing bar lined with familiar stools, and plenty of shiny quilted metal, typically the work of an iron maiden. The food, though, puts nostalgic mediocrity in the backseat, with oyster- & snow crab-loaded seafood towers, clams steamed with duck confit fat, "escargot-style whelks", and crazy-enough-to-work sides like sweet potato fries topped w/ cheddar and maple syrup, a flavor combination the city had previously left untapped. Dinner Specials take the form of roasted duck breast w/ applesauce, and "smoked meat" w/ assorted mustards, while sandwiches run from blue cheese-dressed Reubens, to baguettes loaded w/ Machine Gun steak tartare, so, uh, technically it's a sub machine gun

Drinks come from the Summit team, and run from 'tails like a Laird's & lime Jack Rose w/ housemade grenadine, to liquory ice cream concoctions called "Feel Good Shakes", something you certainly don't have the morning after you usually go to a diner.